Transparency

“ It can mean that some knowledge within the peer reviewing procedure is openly accessible, while other information is kept away from the public. In such an understanding, transparency is supposed to buttress the existing two pillars of legitimacy, robustness of the procedure and efficiency of distribution. Or it can mean that transparency of knowledge is emerging as a new, third pillar of legitimacy that is indispensable for peer reviewing to retain its pivotal function. From that perspective, transparency of knowledge would have the potential of radically transforming peer reviewing. ”

“ But like democracy, peer review is a principle that requires specific arrangements in order to be effective. If funders want to retain the status of peer reviewing as the fairest method of distributing funds to researchers, they must embrace transparency more actively. ”

“ Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies
My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government. Government should be transparent. Transparency promotes accountability and provides information for citizens about what their Government is doing. Information maintained by the Federal Government is a national asset. ”

“ Beginning with the open review period for proposals, conversations about which organizations and what amounts to approve for funding are happening in public. Because the movement is relatively well-networked, this means that commenters are often giving feedback to people they know, interact, and work with - and in this way, transparency requires creates mutual accountability between applicants, commenters, and committee members. ”

“ And whereas democracy requires an informed citizenry and transparency of information which are vital to its functioning and also to contain corruption and to hold Governments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed ”

“ Other indicators are also important to success, but less subject to precise measurement, such as the extent to which principles of transparency, trust in government institutions, and acceptance of the rule of law are taking hold amongst a population that has never known them. ”

“ Transparency in state affairs is also a necessity and large part of maintaining rule of law. Also, our foreign policy plays an important role in making sure our targets in the international market are met. ”

“ Our democracy depends upon transparency, but some information must be protected from public disclosure for the sake of our security – for instance, the movements of our troops; our intelligence-gathering ”

“ For, if we consider first, the very faint light wherewith the object is enlightened, whence many particles appear opacous, which when more enlightned, appear very transparent, so that I was fain to determine its transparency by one glass, and its texture by another. ”

“ In 2006, the reform of the corporate financial disclosure system remained a work in progress. The costs of more rigorous disclosure, especially to small businesses, and the reach of reforms to companies headquartered in other countries were among the many controversial political issues. ”

“ Campaign finance disclosure remains widely supported in concept but perennially debated in its specifics. Over the years, the system has gained diverse users and the support of many candidates. The press, advocacy groups, political consultants, groups concerned with expa nding public information , a nd other intermediaries often repackage the disclosed data and provide their own interpretations for the public. ”

“ Methods of organization like these, imperceptible to the public eye but absolutely sure, are the best calculated to succeed in bringing the attention and the confidence of the public to the side of our government. Thanks to such methods we shall be in a position as from time to time may be required, to excite or to tranquillise the public mind on political questions, to persuade or to confuse, printing now truth, now lies, facts or their contradictions, according as they may be well or ill received, always very cautiously feeling our ground before stepping upon it. ”

“ The press, with its unsparing vigilance, will arrange itself on either side, to control, and influence public opinion; and there will always be some danger, that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real proofs of innocence or guilt. [91]
§ 745. On the other hand, the delicacy and magnitude of a trust, which so deeply concerns the political existence and reputation of every man engaged in the administration of public affairs, cannot be overlooked. ”

“ One should tell the people their business so soon as ever that business is transacted. More folk are trapped and slain with their own secrets than are saved by them. Besides one has no right to lock a door between the people and their affairs. There go but two keys with government, one for the treasury and the other for the gaol, and every officer from path-master to President should be made to study this lesson of the keys until he can repeat it.”
To this lecture I made no retort whether of comment, denial or agreement. ”

“ As President, therefore, it is my obligation to protect not only our Government's vital information from improper disclosure, but also to protect the rights of citizens to receive the information necessary for democracy to work. ”

“ If they are false or exaggerated, we are ignorant of what is taking place, and misled. It is of infinitely more importance that they should be absolutely trustworthy than that the editorial comments should be sound and wise. If the reports on affairs can be depended on, the public can form its own opinion, and act intelligently. And; if the public has a right to demand anything of a newspaper, it is that its reports of what occurs shall be faithfully accurate, unprejudiced, and colorless. ”

“ We are more careful than any paper in this town about verifying every statement we make, before we make it. If we should publish a single statement about anyone that was false even in part we would be suppressed. The judges, the bosses, the owners of the big blood-sucking public service corporations, the whole ruling class, are eager to put us out of existence. Don't forget this fact when you hear the New Day called a lying, demagogical sheet. ”

“ The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people, is to give them full information of their affairs through the channel of the public papers, and to contrive 100 that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. ”

“ The shrewd promoter gives stock in his company to influential bankers or business men in the community in order that he may use their examples as a selling argument.
If you wish to influence your audience through suggestion, if you would have your statements accepted without criticism or argument, you should appear in the light of an authority—and be one. Ignorance and credulity will remain unchanged unless the suggestion of authority be followed promptly by facts. Don't claim authority unless you carry your license in your pocket. Let reason support the position that suggestion has assumed. ”

“ If the credulity of the people exposes them to so easy an admission of every report, why have the writers for the minister found so little credit? Why have all the loud declamations, and the laboured arguments, the artful insinuations, and positive assertions, which have been for many years circulated round the nation, at the expense of the government, produced no effect upon the people, nor convinced any man, who was not apparently bribed, to resign his private opinion to that of his patrons? ”

“ Information concerning deliberations, examinations or consultations internally conducted by or mutually conducted between state organs, Incorporated Administrative Agencies, etc., local public entities and Local Incorporated Administrative Agencies, where disclosure is likely to cause unjust harm to the open exchange of opinions or the neutrality of decision making, cause unjust confusion among citizens, or bring unjust advantages or disadvantages to specific individuals. ”

“ The expectation of a President to the confidentiality of his conversations and correspondence, like the claim of confidentiality of judicial deliberations, for example, has all the values to which we accord deference for the privacy of all citizens and, added to those values, is the necessity for protection of the public interest in candid, objective, and even blunt or harsh opinions in Presidential decisionmaking. ”

“ And if we were to put out to the public the most sensitive materials that they have trusted us to look at without asking them to conduct a review, without collaborating together to make sure that inaccuracies are not disseminated to the public, we will break the trust with them. ”

“ Full publicity, printed statements of accounts, and occasional discussions and inquiries at general meetings, are the only safeguards; and a due degree of vigilance should be exercised on those who discourage these principles. ”

“ From time to time indeed some illicit disclosure, the publication of some confidential document, throws an unexpected light on a situation which is obscure; but these disclosures, so hazardous to the good repute of the men who are responsible and the country in which they are possible, must be treated with great reserve. Prompted by motives of private revenge or public ambition, they disclose only half the truth, and a portion of the truth is often more misleading than complete ignorance. ”

“ Thus, you can see that the Presidents of the United States have withheld information of Executive departments or agencies whenever it was found that the information sought was confidential or that its disclosure would be incompatible with the public interest or jeopardize the safety of the Nation. The courts too have held that the question whether the production of the papers was contrary to the public interest was a matter for the Executive to determine. ”

“ As to myself, conscious that there was not a truth on earth which I feared should be known, I have lent myself willingly as the subject of a great experiment, which was to prove that an administration, conducting itself with integrity and common understanding, cannot be battered down, even by the falsehoods of a licentious press, and consequently still less by the press, as restrained within the legal and wholesome limits of truth. ”

“ You have only to establish a board of men in whom you have confidence,—a court of claims, so to speak,—to pass upon the validity of every application, not from a business standpoint alone, but from one of a broad justice and equity. ”

“ Is it a revelation to find that we need, in our civil affairs, to devise guarantees against selfishness, rapacity, and fraud? I have ventured to affirm that government has never had to deal with anything else. ”

“ But you must not ask us to reveal these valuable secrets, to do what you would not do yourselves. The public and our law-makers do not want your secrets nor ours, and it would be a damage to them to have them. ”

“ Public officials and public figures usually enjoy significantly greater access to the channels of effective communication and hence have a more realistic opportunity to counteract false statements than private individuals normally enjoy. ”

“ Administrative work of the government has been made more transparent. Following the principle that public disclosure is the rule rather than the exception, a list of well-defined powers, a list of responsibilities and a negative list for governments at different levels have been introduced across the country. ”

“ In the courts of that country from which we derive our great principles of individual liberty and the rules of evidence it is well settled—and the doctrine has been fully recognized in this country—that a minister of the Crown or the head of a department can not be compelled to produce any papers or disclose any transactions relating to the executive functions of the Government which he declares are confidential or such as the public interest requires should not be divulged ”

“ Information is obtained either at great expense through private agents, or else by favour through official channels, that is, from the professional politicians. The Official Press makes and unmakes the politicians. Therefore, the politician is careful to keep it informed of truths that are valuable to him, as well as to make it the organ of falsehoods equally valuable. ”

“ In the nineteenth century, however, publicity takes possession of national affairs to such an extent that the governments themselves publish the official data without concealing, which no government would earlier have thought possible. ”

“ As Magistrates of the press, and Censors for the public,—to which you are bound by the sacred ties of integrity to exert the most spirited impartiality, and to which your suffrages should carry the marks of pure, dauntless, irrefragable truth,—to appeal for your MERCY, were to solicit your dishonour ”

“ For me, it does seem quite clear that the public person has a greater likelihood of securing access to channels of communication sufficient to rebut falsehoods concerning him than do private individuals in this country who do not toil in the public spotlight. ”

“ Some of the lies sent forth on the wings of the Press are hereby nailed to the counter, and it is to be hoped that yourself, or your Society, will at once disprove, by any means at your disposal, charges which, if not so disproved, clearly show that your evidence in connection with these matters is discredited and untrustworthy, and that no one will be justified in paying attention to any statement of yours, unless supported by evidence that has not been purchased or invented. ”